The lower your social class, the ‘wiser’ you are, suggests new study AAAS (Chuck L). Correlation is not causation. My observation is that how good people are at conflict avoidance/management is heavily influenced, if not largely determined, by modeling from their immediate family members. And this article has an unduly simplistic model of “class”. One of the markers of old money is their manners, their relaxed stance in social gatherings, their attention to making sure other people feel comfortable. The implicit message is: “I am secure in my position and it’s therefore easy for me to be gracious.” And while the plural of anecdote is not data, arguably the greatest diplomat of all time, Talleyrand, came from an ancient and very aristocratic family and remained a powerful figure after the French Revolution.

Should plant-based meat replace beef completely? PBS. The problem IMHO is the proposed replacement is soy protein. I’d be much happier if it were any other sort of plant protein (I often have a plant protein power which provides the proper mix of amino acids and it does not use soy). Asian cultures do not use much soy in their diets and the way they prepare most of it (fermenting, sprouting) in ways that reduce their lectin and phytate concentration. Soy also contains a lot of goitrogens, which is not so hot given that a lot of women already have a hypothyroid condition.

This Week in Fiction: Luke Mogelson New Yorker. Robert M: “These Heroic Happy Dead by Luke Mogelson’s is a collection of loosely related short stories about veterans after they have come back from foreign wars. All of them vivid without being melodramatic.”

Basically saying “UK’s loss, Germany’s gain”. Of course, the question will be how will Germany react to it, and also the fact that for skilled jobs, you need to have a reasonable command of the language, and fewer people have that for German than for English (although I believe that for a number of multinationals – or even not so multinationals, like Raifeissen bank – English is the official internal language).